Our Introduction into Sense-Making & Complexity Thinking

Those who know Jabe understand that his role extends outside the traditional boundaries of a CTO. A significant aspect of his role at TLC is to spur organizational learning by introducing new concepts, languages, and ontologies to help us deal with the complexities of managing a large software company.

“Boundaries are possibly the most important elements, in sense-making, because the represent differences among or transitions between the patterns we create in the world that we perceive.”

One such body of knowledge that Jabe has introduced is the use of Dave Snowden‘s Cynefin sense-making framework. Jabe has been trained by Cognitive Edge, and we have found it very valuable to decision making. Simon and I, after reading a lot of material, have decided to get formal training from Snowden. In preparation for taking the Advanced Practitioners workshop, Jabe recommended the following readings to prime us before heading to Calgary. Simon and I have documented those readings below in case your interested in Cynefin, Complexity, and Systems thinking and how it might help in organizational decision-making.

What is Cynefin?

Cynefin is a sense-making framework, which means that its value is not so much in logical arguments or empirical verifications (Snowden distinguishes this from traditional 2×2 matrices that MBAs and management consultants often use) as in its effect on the sense-making and decision-making capabilities of those who use it. The Cynefin framework gives decision makers new constructs and ontologies to make sense of a wide range of unspecified problems. It also helps break out of old ways of thinking and to consider intractable problems in new ways. The framework is particularly useful in collective sense-making, in that it is designed to allow shared understandings to emerge through the multiple discourses of the decision-making group. While we have made significant use of the framework, we thought it would be valuable to receive more formal training.

Books

Will Evans is a misanthrope in the User Experience (UX) and design thinking communities. He is fascinated by complexity theory, Lean, Kanban, and AgileUX. Previously, he led experience design for TheLadders in New York City. He has over 15 years industry experience in interaction design, information architecture, and user experience strategy. His experiences includes directing UX for social network analytics & terrorism modeling at AIR Worldwide, UX Architect for social media site Gather.com, and UX Architect for travel search engine Kayak.com.
He worked at Lotus/IBM where he was the senior information architect, and for Curl - a DARPA-funded MIT project when he was at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.
Will's work in research and design has been featured in numerous publications including Business Week, The Economist, Business Insider, Fast Company, Time Magazine, Fortune, MSNBC, Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal.